20 April 2023

Saturday 22 April is Earth Day which was first held on the same date in 1970 and the same date every year thereafter.

Earth day is recognised and celebrated by over 1 billion people in 193 countries.

James Long, CNWL's Sustainability Manager, said

"The purpose of Earth Day is to raise awareness around environmental issues and to celebrate the natural resources that we have.

"CNWL have from this month moved over to a 100 per cent clean renewable energy tariff and changed our Salary Sacrifice scheme for vehicles to only use electric and ultra low emission vehicles. 

"We're also continuing to receive a huge amount of support from CNWL staff in delivering our Green Plan pledges. We are looking to give out our first ‘Sustainability Inspiration Award’ soon - look out for the winners."

Below are a few suggestions of things that you can do on Earth Day 

  • Enjoy your local environment – Go for a walk or a cycle or a run at a local outdoor space. 
  • Plant something whether that’s within your living space or garden. 
  • You can take a few minutes to undertake the WWF’s Carbon Footprint Calculator (opens link) which will give you suggestions on reducing your Carbon Footprint. 
  • There are events here - https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2023/#map if you put your location in the search bar and a host of other information that you may find useful. 

CNWL is over one year into its Green Plan where we set out our route map to reduce our Carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2040. We now have 84 individual pledges with involvement from all of our services.

Below is a snapshot of just some of the achievements that have been made within the last year

  • The Trust has reduced its waste to landfill to 0% within the contracts we manage
  • ICT have updated our Local Area Network to be more energy efficient and have added low energy options to the Trust ICT procurement catalogue
  • Pharmacy has reduced their paper usage by switching to EPMA Trustwide and continues to find alternative medicines with reduced carbon loading. They’ve also changed local practices to reduce travel.
  • We are exceeding our goals for food waste and we are meeting our objectives for single use plastics and recycling of catering packaging.
  • There is currently a Trustwide recycling review taking place that is looking to improve our current recycling options.
  • We hold regular Energy Roadshows for staff

We are looking to have successfully closed 29 per cent of all of our original pledges and be at 50 per cent by the end of June.

This is not to say that ‘The Green Plan’ is where our commitment to reducing our Carbon footprint ends. We are continually looking for new ways to be more sustainable.

We have a thriving sustainability staff interest community - ‘The Green Group’ who discuss what we are currently doing as a Trust and what else we can add.

We’re also working locally with other Trusts to establish working groups for recycled walking aids and our Infection Prevention and Control Team is leading the way with their ‘Gloves Off’ campaign.